Association of food and physical activity patterns with obesity in ethnically diverse school children in Texas
Abstract
Background: In the United States, obesity affects about 17% of all children and adolescents [1]. The school Physical Activity and Nutrition 2009-2011 data indicated that Texas had a higher prevalence of obesity than other states of the US among 4th, 8th and 11 grade students [2]. It is expected that adolescents in overweight or obesity status will consequently, become adults who are overweight or obese. An in-depth understanding of childhood weight status and its associated factors of food and drink consumption pattern as well as physical activity and sedentary behavior patterns could lead to important recommendations on understanding these relationships among 8th grade students in Texas. Methods: We used SPAN 2009-2011 survey dataset of 8 th grade students (n = 3,931; N = 310,045) aged 13.4 ± 0.05 (mean ± SD) years in a cross-sectional design. The classification and regression tree analysis was employed to identify students sharing similar food and drink consumption variables as well as physical activity and sedentary behavior variables that were associated with childhood weight status. Since CART only generates patterns, we conducted univariate and polytomous (ordered) logistic regression analyses to estimate adjusted odds ratios and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals. Results: Eleven food and drink consumption patterns, and nine physical activity and sedentary behavior patterns were extracted in relation with weight status. After adjusting for community type, gender, and race/ethnicity, 8th grade students in Texas within the food and drink consumption Pattern2 (OR = 0.12, 95% CI = 0.04 to 0.35), Pattern3 (OR = 0.07, 95% CI = 0.02 to 0.26), and Pattern6 (OR = 0.16, 95% CI = 0.03 to 0.97) were significantly associated with weight status. However, none of the physical activity and sedentary behavior was significantly associated with weight status. Conclusions: These findings suggest that intervention programs to influence some of the food and drink consumption patterns among 8 th grade students in Texas could be associated with weight status. Future research in exploring the combined effect of food and drink consumption variables with the physical activity and sedentary behavior variables among 8th grade students in Texas is recommended.
Subject Area
Biostatistics|Nutrition|Public health|Kinesiology|Ethnic studies
Recommended Citation
John, Teke, "Association of food and physical activity patterns with obesity in ethnically diverse school children in Texas" (2014). Texas Medical Center Dissertations (via ProQuest). AAI1569955.
https://digitalcommons.library.tmc.edu/dissertations/AAI1569955